Heavy rain on the way as Hurricane Center watches two systems

Top: A low pressure area near the Cayman Islands will move north, bringing tropical rains to South Florida. (Credit: NOAA). Bottom: The National Hurricane Center was monitoring the Caribbean low and Invest 95L in the North Atlantic for possible storm development. (Credit: NHC)

Don’t bother watering your garden today.

Heavy rain is expected to move into South Florida from the Caribbean starting Tuesday night and continuing through the weekend, possibly triggering a flood watch, forecasters at the National Weather Service in Miami said.

The mass of showers and storms near the Cayman Islands Tuesday morning was given a 10 percent chance by the National Hurricane Center of becoming a tropical depression, or Tropical Storm Chris, in the next 48 hours. That’s assuming the low pressure area in the North Atlantic, designated 95L, doesn’t become Tropical or Subtropical Storm Chris first — NHC forecasters were giving that system a 50 percent chance of development.

Under that scenario, the Caribbean mess could eventually blossom into Tropical Storm Debby.

But 95L is moving into increasingly cool water and is running out of time to acquire tropical or subtropical characteristics. It was 437 miles south-southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia with sustained winds of 46 mph. It’s moving east-northeast.

Getting back to the rainy South Florida forecast:

The Caribbean low should move to the northwest and enter the Gulf of Mexico near the Yucatan peninsula and then west toward the Bay of Campeche. Along the way, the east side of the system will pump copious amounts of moisture into the Florida peninsula. The NWS’ Hydrometeorological Prediction Center estimated 5 inches of rain or more will fall in the Keys through Sunday, and possibly up to 2 inches in Palm Beach.

NWS forecasters, however, are predicting up to 4 inches north of Alligator Alley with higher amounts in some locations.

That may not be the end of it as the GFS forecast model shows the Gulf low ultimately moving northeast and dragging a lot more rain over the peninsula along with it. “The heavy rainfall potential for these later periods will depend on the exact track of the low,” Miami forecasters said Tuesday.

“Long story short, it will be a very rainy period across South Florida through the entire period. The only question is the exact placement of the heaviest rainfall potential.”

The June rainfall deficit of almost 1 inch at Palm Beach International Airport should be erased in the next few days.

In addition, with a high pressure system over the Carolinas and the low to our south, the pressure difference will keep winds gusting off the Atlantic into the mid-20s. That also means a high risk of rip currents at the beach. Through 8 a.m. winds at the beaches in Palm Beach were gusting up to 24 mph through Tuesday morning.

* * *

It still wasn’t the best place to build a beach-front home, but fringe areas of Antarctica were green and covered with trees during a round of global warming 15-20 million years ago, according to a new study reported by NASA published Sunday.

Temperatures reached a balmy 45 degrees in spots, said researchers writing for the journal Nature Geoscience. They looked at core samples taken from beneath the continent’s Ross Ice Shelf.

“The ultimate goal of the study was to better understand what the future of climate change may look like,” said Sarah Feakins, an assistant professor of Earth sciences at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “Just as history has a lot to teach us about the future, so does past climate.

“This record shows us how much warmer and wetter it can get around the Antarctic ice sheet as the climate system heats up. This is some of the first evidence of just how much warmer it was.”

About the Author

John Nelander is a freelance writer, book editor and publisher in West Palm Beach. Weather Matters features news and observations about the weather with a focus on what's happening in South Florida. The blog also looks at the latest studies on climate change as well as what's happening in the weather forecasting biz. His website is www.pbeditorialservices.com.